Review of The Jerk (1979) by Xgary X — 26 Jun 2008

The Jerk is the story of Navin R. Johnson, who was born a poor black kid but on hearing muzak for the first time discovers his rhythm and set out to find his special purpose...Some younger movie-goers may not know this, but Steve Martin actually used to be funny.

This is one of his early films, and as such is far more concerned with random silliness and slapstick than the saccharine soaked sentimentality that became his trademark. I loved this film when I was younger but inevitably on revisiting it, it wasn't as funny as I remembered.

I think the problem is that the Zucker/Abrams franchise behemoth has long since milked this particular brand of humour dry, so it all looks far more everyday and run-of-the-mill than it used to. But it's still got plenty of laugh out loud moments, including funny turns from Jackie Mason ("he's teaching me to be impatient") and M.

Emmett Walsh as a psychotic lone gunman, as well as plenty of visual gags and one liners (the cat juggler in particular is straight out of Monty Python!) Maybe not the work of genius I remembered, but still a better than anything he's done in the past two decades, and certainly a hell of a lot funnier than Adam bloody Sandler.